17 March 2012

Sometimes, alarming facts can be concealed behind seemingly
innocuous jargon. That is the case with the Pew Forum on Religion &
Public Life’s latest pollingon the “migratory patterns” of religious groups. As it turns out, one particular group is consistently on the move:

Of the seven groups examined in this report, Jews have by
far the highest overall level of international migration, in percentage
terms. About one-quarter of Jews alive today have left the country in
which they were born…

By contrast, only one-in-twenty Christians [the next most migratory
religious group] alive today (5%) have emigrated from their country of
birth.

Obviously part of the answer has to do with the number of believers
the religions claim. If five percent of 2.4 billion Christians migrate,
we are talking about 120 million people. If one fourth of the world’s 14
million Jews pack up and move, only 3.4 million are hitting the road.

Still, the high percentage of Jewish migrants is striking, and to understand why these numbers matter, one must turn to the Washington Post,
which enlisted experts to explain the reason so many Jews have been on
the hunt for greener pastures. The answer is sadly unsurprising:

“The world Jewish community is consolidating,” said
Jonathan Sarna, a professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis
University… “Jews are abandoning Third World countries where
historically they had been persecuted and moving to large and generally
free First World countries.”

…A positive spin on Jewish migratory trends is that Jews, so often
persecuted in their homelands, are safer in their new countries.

But “what we’re losing is one of the great themes of Jewish history,”
said Sarna, referring to the collapse of Jewish communities in the
Middle East, North Africa and other lands where they had lived for
millennia.

In other words, anti-Semitism is alive and well across the globe, and
there are millions of persecuted Jewish refugees as a result. That the
majority–some three million–have found a haven in Israel is a reminder
of that country’s essential importance.

Via Meadia looks forward to the day when people of all
faiths are safe in their homes and when hope and not fear is the reason
that most people move.

Soph: Sadly, Mr Mead is mistaken if he believes that the First World countries are going to be a safe haven for Jews. Anti-semitism in Europe is exploding and, as seen on campuses, protests, and elsewhere, it is alive and well here in the United States, especially within the Left.

16 March 2012

Starstruck David Cameron's embarrassing fawning over Barack Obama and his 'beautiful words'

By Toby Harden

What David Cameron described as his "guys night out" watching
basketball with President Barack Obama in the swing state of Ohio was
cheesy and embarrassing enough. But has there ever been a speech given
by a British prime minister that was quite as cringeworthy as Cameron's
"toast" to Obama at last night's State Dinner?

Watch the video. Cameron starts speaking at the 8:20 point and almost
immediately hails Obama's "strong and beautiful words". It's downhill
from there.

He takes a cheap shot at Richard Nixon - the easiest possible target
in front of a gathering of Obamaphiles - and his own Tory predecessor
Ted Heath. He makes corny jokes about cricket and Watergate ("call in
the plumbers" - Geddit?) and then lauds Obama's "strength, moral authority and wisdom". No mention of Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher.

Then comes what must surely be one of the most obsequious things
Obama - who is well used to adulation - has ever heard. Obama, says
Cameron "has pressed the reset button on the moral authority of the
entire free world".

Certainly, Obama has delivered some "beautiful words" around the world, starting in Berlin before he was even the Democratic nominee and continuing in Cairo. In Strasbourg, he apologised for the times when "America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive" towards its allies.

But Obama has certainly shown arrogance and dismissiveness towards the UK in a way that President George W. Bush never did. Israel considers the US an unreliable ally under Obama. Iran's green revolutionaries
might question Obama's "moral authority" after he allowed them to be
crushed by Tehran's theocratic regime, as might the Syrian rebels and
civilians currently dying at the hands of President Bashar Assad.

Then there was this passage, in which Cameron chucks in the names of
Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King for no apparent reason at all - other
than, presumably and patronisingly, because Obama is black: "Half a
century ago, the amazing courage of Rosa Parks, the visionary leadership
of Martin Luther King, and the inspirational actions of the civil
rights movement led politicians to write equality into the law and make
real the promise of America for all her citizens.

“We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out.”

- Sir Winston Churchill

Soph: Muffin has become a slave to the Cult of Obama.

Behaviour quite unbecoming a British Prime Minister.

"But in the fight for justice and the struggle for freedom, there is
no end, because there is so much more to do to ensure that every human
being can fulfill their potential. That is why our generation faces a
new civil rights struggle, to seek the prize of the future that is open
to every child as never before. Barack has made this one of the goals of
his presidency, the goal he's pursuing with enormous courage."

What on earth is Cameron talking about? Gay marriage? Obama's against
that, publicly at least. Healthcare reform? Or maybe it's just what it
sounds - utter vacuity.

As I argued in this newspaper piece,
Cameron is foolish to have ignored the Republicans during this trip.
Mitt Romney, the likely GOP nominee, was in New York yesterday and today
and was presumably available for a meeting. Cameron's predecessor
Gordon Brown met candidates Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain in Washington in April 2008. President Obama met Cameron in London in April 2009 when the Tory was opposition leader.

He only added to this error by his fawning praise of the man he
referred to earlier in the day as "Mr President Barack" - which only
reinforces the sense that the UK the much junior partner in the
much-vaunted (in the UK) "special relationship".

For a British prime minister to align himself with one side in
American politics is a rookie error. To do it with the party on the
opposite side (supposedly) of the political spectrum is pure folly.

And, of course, 41 of the 364 guests
were - surprise, surprise - major Obama fundraisers. The White House
drew up the guest list but if there's anyone with backbone in Downing
Street (maybe a forlorn hope, I know) there will be a protest about the
way Cameron was used to entertain Democratic donors being rewarded for
their largesse in an election year.

Come next year, Cameron - assuming he is still in office - may very
well find himself having to deal with a President Mitt Romney. If so,
the first thing he'll have to do is mend some fences.